Not a lot of cook books have pictures, but The Joy of cooking is a great cook book. They do really well at making all of it make sense. Explain all of the foods and how it works the best. (which apples are cooking apples) However, having said that I have an absolute favorite for all things dinner in my house.
http://www.savingdinner.com/
$29.95 a year, and you get a menu and grocery list for the week. She does six meals a week. I find it well worth the money. She has a sample week to try before you buy. After 3 years, I have a pretty large archive I can access if for some reason I don't like what's for dinner this week (rarely happens)
The hard thing with a cookbook, especially if you are not a chef, is I find myself staring at it trying to figure out what to cook. Then you have to do all the planning and it can be intimidating when you are just getting started. I used to find myself in front of the pantry with no idea what to cook even though I had no shortage of food or cookbooks. Now I just follow my menu for the week with a few family favs added in.